i am a D- player but i am still anti-mbs please don't generalise all newbs to be pro mbs
Hi sam, the argument is that all pro-MBS are noobs, not that all noobs are pro-MBS. You are anti-MBS because you understand and enjoy the effect that SBS has on the game.
To be fair, 99% of all Pro-MBS people are noobs. There is nothing wrong with being a noob, dont take it as a putdown. But that being said, you are trying to change something that you do not fully understand. There is a reason why all the good players (Im not a good player btw) are anti-MBS and its not because they are scared of losing their skill when they transition over to SC2.
The reason why most of the Pro-MBS people want it in the game is because they find Starcraft too hard. You might make arguments stating how it will better gameplay by adding strategy, change focus etc. but the bottom line is generally, frustration at the fact that you cannot achieve what you want to achieve and therefore you wish it to be easier. This is a normal human reaction. We wouldnt have caculators if someone hadn't turned around and wanted an easier way to do maths. However this mindset should be supressed if you wish to create a competative medium.
If something IS too hard, then the best should point it out. If boxer turned around tommorow and stated that SBS is too hard, then maybe making the game easier would be considered the best option. However it seems to be only the lesser players that are arguing for MBS.
Also remember, that doing something that no-one else can do is impressive. It impresses the masses and is the BEST thing for spectator sports. For example
The solo at 4 mins. I got the sheet music and tried to learn it on piano. I gave up after a couple of hours. Its just too hard for me. I wouldnt advocate making it easier, however. You should hear the crowds reaction when its done. If anyone could play that solo, it wouldnt be an impressive piece would it?
I wished you guys would quit freaking kissing the ass of korean pro gamers and stop all this argueing over something so mundane as MBS while none of you has any idea what the game really is. SC2 looks awesome and its in the hands of Blizzard, yes the guys who never failed a game release. You think they re too stupid to realize the effect of what MBS and other things that are different to BW will make to SC2?
Seriously lots of you need to GET A LIFE. Starcraft2 will NOT be Broodwar in 3D, get that in your brain.
On March 26 2008 22:38 Famehunter wrote: I wished you guys would quit freaking kissing the ass of korean pro gamers and stop all this argueing over something so mundane as MBS while none of you has any idea what the game really is. SC2 looks awesome and its in the hands of Blizzard, yes the guys who never failed a game release. You think they re too stupid to realize the effect of what MBS and other things that are different to BW will make to SC2?
Seriously lots of you need to GET A LIFE. Starcraft2 will NOT be Broodwar in 3D, get that in your brain.
I dont see how not wanting MBS in the game makes us want broodwar in 3D... but yeah w/e
On March 26 2008 20:18 geno wrote: My second conclusion has been said many times: have some faith in Blizzard. This issue is likely just as, if not more important to them than it is to us. As I've said in a previous post, Blizzard is known for not being afraid to make very fundamental changes during a Beta, and I wouldn't be the least surprised if methods of unit production was one such change. I'm sure they will make a fantastic game when all is said and done, and in general, people need to not worry as much.
Thats exactly what we should NOT do. Dont pray for something to happen MAKE it happen. Warcraft 3 is a "fantastic" game and Blizzard wasnt afraid to make "fundamental" changes. AWESOME! Good that we all had faith in Blizzard now they made the new best RTS ... oh wait..
Now is the chance to voice our opinions and we should do that and not "have faith in Blizzard" that failed to deliver already. We´re talking about Starcraft 2 here not Pokemon Alpha 2B.
This MBS issue will be a big one. Either Blizzard will go with the mainstream and use MBS or not and that will certainly have consequences on future RTS games when SC2 is successful.
In this post I'll try to elaborate only on factual (in my opinion) errors from your post, if you interested of course.
On March 26 2008 17:45 mahnini wrote: Microing takes strategy, tactics, and speed. Macro takes strategy, tactics, and speed. Yet somehow, some people consider one to be more relevant than the other.
There is two reasons why people do this, and both reasons are left outside of your post:
1. Both micro and unit production play their role throughout the game. But there is one important difference - unit production appears only periodically. With micro you can increase or decrease intensity, you can be forced by your opponent or you can force your opponent to micro. Unit production takes it place only once in XX seconds and completely fades away till another wave. Сontrary, micro phases often lead to non-stop action.
Partly, as a result, appears another important point - players can spend additional 10, 20 or much more seconds increasing effectiveness of their armies (using spells more accurately, focus-firing with groups of units, saving wounded units or scouting, etc). This is not true for unit production, spending more time on unit production rather decreases effectiveness. Although, player can improve his timing, thus improving unit production (once in XX seconds), but that's rather mental task, which almost isn't affected with mbs. As for micro, each additional second has huge potential to increase results.
2. Micro has more depth. It not just requires more complicated skills from player (as mouse precision). Micro can tear apart player attention - it can, and usually does, produce additional multitasking layers (harassing and leading your army at the same time; attacking in different directions, etc), while unit production itself is such layer and different branches of unit production are usually connected by "unit production periods" and doesn't form real multitasking subdivisions
On March 26 2008 22:29 Fen wrote:
Hi sam, the argument is that all pro-MBS are noobs, not that all noobs are pro-MBS. .... EDIT: Could a mod please ban me
fixed for you oh, and If you can't keep away personal attacks, please, shut the fuck up.
On March 26 2008 23:38 Senix wrote: Thats exactly what we should NOT do. Dont pray for something to happen MAKE it happen. Warcraft 3 is a "fantastic" game and Blizzard wasnt afraid to make "fundamental" changes. AWESOME! Good that we all had faith in Blizzard now they made the new best RTS ... oh wait..
If you don't like it, that doesn't mean it's bad. And WC3 is RTS/RPG. First and only successful RTS/RPG on such level.
On March 26 2008 23:38 Senix wrote: Thats exactly what we should NOT do. Dont pray for something to happen MAKE it happen. Warcraft 3 is a "fantastic" game and Blizzard wasnt afraid to make "fundamental" changes. AWESOME! Good that we all had faith in Blizzard now they made the new best RTS ... oh wait..
Now is the chance to voice our opinions and we should do that and not "have faith in Blizzard" that failed to deliver already. We´re talking about Starcraft 2 here not Pokemon Alpha 2B.
This MBS issue will be a big one. Either Blizzard will go with the mainstream and use MBS or not and that will certainly have consequences on future RTS games when SC2 is successful.
You are correct. Because with Warcraft III, they certainly wanted to recapture the feeling of Warcraft 2 and not make any fundamental changes, yet they did. And because of this, the game didn't become great - no one played it and no professional scene ever evolved. The game wasn't even allowed into the WSG.
The scary thing is, with Starcraft 2, they've said that they want to make fundamental changes to the gameplay. They don't want the Koreans to continue dominating, so they will be adding tons of new features to the game to make it feel like a completely new game. No refinement here, it's almost as if they looked at BW and tried to diverge the design as much as possible from it in order to make the game look "cool" for newbs.
Blizzard has failed us, time and again. Remember the crazy larval respawnrate? Who nerfed that? Blizzard did! Remember that clickycklickycklicky game called Diablo II? Blizzard's fault. The abomination Warcraft III? World of Warcraft? Somehow Blizzard's lost touch with reality. Who would want to play *as* a character from Warcraft III? That game sucked.
StarCraft II is bound to fail if they implement MBS.
I think we need to update Moltke's list of things you need to know about a woman before you can decide if you are attracted to her or not with "is she pro or anti-MBS".
This is ridiculous. There exists an MBS thread already and your thoughts hardly deserve their own post. "ME ME ME" is what you're saying by thinking your thoughts on MBS are so much more important than EVERYBODY elses that they should read THIS and nothing else. It's absurd.
I made a much better anti-MBS argument in the last debate thread. Did you read it? I would have to assume not, which means you're even less qualified to represent the whole of MBS argument because you haven't even been following it!
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't really disagree with you overall anyways. I'm certainly not any more pro-MBS than I am anti-MBS. You could say I'm reserving judgement, but that would paint me as an escapist. In reality, I don't believe anyone should be able to so concretely make such heavy claims.
I do think the issue is more complex than you are making it at times. First of all, I believe the real problem area is not the core MBS system, but instead MBS with hotkeys. That is a somewhat important distinction to make if you are trying to really isolate, or "boil down" the problem. Your post would be somewhat contradictory if you felt MBS without hotkeys to be damaging, due largely in part to your views on the level of limitation in the UI; if 8 clicks is really not especially important in a game between 400APM players and 5z6d7t0p is 8 clicks, then is that the real problem with MBS? Not really. And even if it did require fewer clicks (I prefer the term actions), they should still be insignificant if 8 are (except of course the difference between 0 and 1, which is a matter of decision making and not mechanics) What is important is the amount of attention those 8 actions draw; if the player can perform the 8 (or fewer) without moving their screen from their army, they will not only be able to achieve the same macro result as full base attention, but they will do so with significantly stronger micro response.
And so, the real problem is in fact being able to macro while watching your army (not necessarily managing - people do seem to forget that if you want to micro your army, you will still need to either sacrifice unit production actions or wait until you finish a round). If you are able to watch your army, you will be better informed about when is important enough to sacrifice macro for micro. You will also have more time to decide exactly how to respond to current threats because the actual actions of macro will be reflex and muscle memory in high level play. This is significantly less sacrifice than was necessary for macro in SC1 which means a different feeling game; a different micro to macro balance if you will. This is of course only bad if people are striving for a game with the exact same balance as Starcraft - which I will go ahead and assume (and agree with while I'm at it).
Another important distinction to make, especially when considering non tournament/league play, is that multitasking is still required with MBS. Players will need to decide when to stop moving their army, to stop dancing their marines, dragoonsstalkers, and mutalisks, and when to macro. This is a mental aspect of macro that seems to often be ignored, but is especially important with low to mid skill players. Remembering to macro, or more likely, deciding its worth your time to macro, is a learned skill. Noobies picking up SC2 will most certainly not have it and thus not have perfect macro by far. This mental obstacle of deciding to build units instead of control units is still there with MBS; just because you can macro up with a few hotkey presses does not mean it is always wise to do so at a specific moment. People will therefore still have to make that decision - to control the army or to macro. Noobies will undoubtedly always decide to control the army because most will forget about macro like they did with SC1. Mid level players can still make poor decisions about when to macro - occasionally controlling their army when doing so was fairly fruitless or deciding to macro when micro could have saved them the game
I will have to agree that it's MBS with hotkeys that I, and a majority of others are against. I brought up the UI limitation issue because of the people who consider it a "click fest", so while the UI is technically a limitation, as is every other aspect of every other game ever, it does not limit your abilities. The fast will be faster, the slow will be slower, the only limit is you.
It's true that MBS still forces people to macro, the question is, is it the same kind of macro? I don't want to say MBS makes it too easy, therefore I don't like it. It's about WHY it makes it too easy. Let's take for an example Zerg macro in BW. ZvT early game, your mutas just hatched and you begin harassing. Every two volleys you tell yourself to 5sd6sd7sh, this is fine. The difference is, in order for your 7sh to be truly effective, you must morph lurkers. In this sense, I think Zerg macro is the closest to an effective MBS right now, Zerg can compete with relatively fewer keys because they require relatively fewer buildings. BUT this is canceled by the need to go back and physically morph lurkers (as well as larva management), if this can be done with every race without it feeling like it was included just to cater to MBS, that's fine. Though this dilutes the unique aspect of the races.
On March 27 2008 01:10 Doctorasul wrote: I think we need to update Moltke's list of things you need to know about a woman before you can decide if you are attracted to her or not with "is she pro or anti-MBS".
On March 26 2008 18:56 Vasoline73 wrote: Amen. I hate seeing people argue pro-MBS. It is so annoying. Some people can argue it well, and I understand what they are saying... but if I see one more person go "OMG U JUST WANT LOTZ OF CLICKING IN SC2. STOP BEING HARDCORE" I will kill myself
Likewise man. Good type up mahni I've got to agree with it all the way 8]
On March 27 2008 01:25 GeneralStan wrote: This is ridiculous. There exists an MBS thread already and your thoughts hardly deserve their own post. "ME ME ME" is what you're saying by thinking your thoughts on MBS are so much more important than EVERYBODY elses that they should read THIS and nothing else. It's absurd.
I made a much better anti-MBS argument in the last debate thread. Did you read it? I would have to assume not, which means you're even less qualified to represent the whole of MBS argument because you haven't even been following it!
If I'm making unfounded assumptions I apologize.
The MBS thread carries a very dangerous stigma, "express your opinions here", it's where people go to fling shit. Not only that, there are five different convos going on at the same time. As well as making an MBS argument I'm outlining the anti-MBS definition of macro, and attempting to explain rather than fling shit with people. Do I think my opinion of MBS matters more than others? No. I think my explanation of what macro is substantial in and of itself.
On March 26 2008 22:38 fusionsdf wrote: poor mahnini
They wore out idra, they wore out nony (I think), they wore out tasteless. No well-written post is going to change these people's minds.
But this was a well-written post.
The problem with that trio is that they believed that an appeal to authority (in this instance, themselves) was enough to establish their premises.
That is to say their skill and experience was enough ground to assert how MBS would impact gameplay, which led to a lot of useless flaming and counter charges that SC2 is a different game. Useless, I know
On March 26 2008 18:48 Agone wrote: Well there are two issues with your opinion:
- first, nothing prove that the actual balance between macro and micro is good.
The balance between the two adds complexity to the game. If one was always more important than the other, then there'd never be a reason to do the less important one. The style of every top player would be geared toward the more important one and competitive play would become much less dynamic. As it is now in BW, there are a wide variety of styles at the top, even more than just micro style and macro style, and you can trace the differences in style to how the players manage their time on the UI. When every player manages the UI the same way, and spends the same percentages of time doing the same things, style will disappear and everyone will play the same, optimal way.
On March 26 2008 18:48 Agone wrote: Even above that, nothing prove that the balance between all the strategic decisions you can make is good. As it stands now, I think it's not.
So you like micro-oriented play more than macro-oriented play. Join the line behind the 1,000,000 other people who loved Boxer and hated iloveoov. But to say that the kind of playing you don't like should be eliminated from the game is nonsense.
On March 26 2008 18:48 Agone wrote: As it stands now, macro is not anymore a strategic decision, macro has become a pure click fest and that's the real issue: you don't need to think anymore: a protoss that has trained himself to mechanically click 1z2d3z4d5z etc is more efficient that a protoss that really take the time to think what he is going to do.
Of course macro is a strategic decision. Either you are ignoring the strategic part of macro or you are damning the parts of macro that have exact micro equivalents without also damning those micro equivalents. In the first case, I'll point out the strategic parts of macro. The timing of expansions, the timing of building probes, the timing of adding gateways and the unit ratios are all important strategical parts of macro. A mindless player whose best move is to hit 1z2d3z4d5z is absolutely guaranteed to produce a worse army than the player who intelligently starts and stops probe production, who expands at the absolutely earliest times possible, who always uses the gates he has and never builds too many and who builds perfect unit ratios. In the second case, you must think of macro in terms of micro to see their equivalents. A player who goes back to his gateways, builds new units from each, selects a probe to build 2 more gateways, selects another probe to start another nexus, and builds new probes from his nexii while telling the newly built ones to collect, is no different from a player who goes back to his units, adjusts each one into optimal positions, tells his HT's to cast their storms, drops his reavers from his shuttles, and goes to fetch his reinforcements to clean up the end of the battle. Both sets of actions are equally mundane and exciting, both can be done skillfully or idiotically, both can be done quickly or slowly, both can yield great results or spell defeat. If you think that the macro actions are so boring and mindless, then that is simply your preference.
On March 26 2008 18:48 Agone wrote: Speed clicking is way more efficient that thinking; I can't count the number of games I have seen where the guy who was takiing smart and advanced strategic decision lost to the guy who concentrates on the most basic strategic decision: clicking to make more units. So MBS is not a way to decrease the importance of strategic decision, it's a way to increase the value of the most interesting ones.
Speed clicking and thinking are not mutually exclusive. That is the key to an RTS as an e-sport. Perhaps you've seen a smarter player lose to a faster player but smarter players can also beat faster players. Maybe you don't know these players, but Artosis can rape IdrA in TvT and IdrA absolutely has better mechanics. IdrA can build more units, micro them better and multitask better, but Artosis is very experienced and good at TvT and can win with better build orders, timing and overall strategy. There have always been players even at the professional level who clearly have worse handspeed than their opponents and yet they win. To say that speed clicking is way more efficient is a huge exaggeration to me. How are you even sure the slower person is that much smarter? It seems difficult to prove whereas my counter examples are easy to prove. That is, it's easy to see who is slower so when the slower person wins, it's a solid example. But when the slower person loses, like you are saying, it's difficult to prove that they were smarter.
As far as "increase the value of the most interesting ones" you are obviously back to your own personal preference again. And like I said earlier, increasing the value of certain strategical aspects of the game is a sure way to immediately simplify the game as all players are forced into one optimal style.
On March 26 2008 18:48 Agone wrote: People doesn't want the strategic aspect of macro to be taken out; they complain that they don't have the time to macro to a point they have to renounce to macro strategy. I like the strategic aspect of the game: when the player decide to cut worker production, why and when he decide to push or to expand, what unit did he decide to use and what decision and sacrifice has he made so that those units are avalaible. I don't like to see all those subtle decisions shadowed by how fast you can click on building. When I go on chessbase.com and look at a game of Fischer, I'm amazed; I know i would never come close to his level but I found it amazing. when I look at a game of a 400 apm progamer i'm rarely amazed, and I still know i would never come close to his level. The two are highly skilled, but the skills required in the first case are more interesting; if MBS allow SC2 to favour this kind of skills, I'm all for it.
At this point, I think you are quite confused about what SC:BW and SC2 and any RTS meant for competition as an e-sport are supposed to be. Chess is a turn-based strategy game. There is no physical aspect to it. A paralyzed person could play chess just as well as anyone. That is absolutely not what SC:BW or SC2 is supposed to be. The strategical part of an RTS can strive to be as deep and complex as chess, and it can easily be deep and complex enough that nobody can "solve" it, like we see now with SC:BW, but in the end, the strategical part is only a part. The actual user input via keyboard and mouse is supposed to be part of the game. If technology improved and the computer could take input directly from our thoughts, that technology would not be good for SC:BW nor SC2. Think of SC2 in terms of a sport, not a turn-based board game. Sports have immense strategical depth and yet the execution of strategy is limited and defined by the physical abilities of the players.
On March 26 2008 18:48 Agone wrote: Some says that broodwar is still evolving and that a good sign. On the contrary I find that broodwar evolved extremly slowly. How many years does it take to play defiler in zvt? Maybe because progamers had to train X hours a day to get used to click click click rather than to think. How can you look at progamer who have to do a lot a useless spamming just to "keep" the rythm so that they are able to click when necessary and say there are not a UI problem? How can you say that there are not a UI issue when some people trains 10 hours a day and are still not able to use efficiently spell such as feedback, by lack of time, even though it quite cost effective?
Again, think of SC:BW and SC2 in terms of a sport. The optimal move, assuming that every move has a 100% success rate, is often very difficult to execute and has, in reality, a very low success rate. You don't expect a tennis player to aim his ball to hit 1mm of paint at the far corner of the court on every single shot. Would you prefer that the tennis court was like a chess board and the player says "on this move, I put the ball in the corner" and he just places the ball there? That's an extremely difficult shot but it'd often be the best strategical move if you have a 100% success rate. Do you feel entitled to be able to do the best move just because you thought of it and see that it's good? 100% success rates are for board games. That is not what an RTS game is. That is not what a sport is nor an e-sport.
Progamers have barely trained for SC:BW when you put things into perspective. When you watch professional soccer, basketball, football, baseball or any sport in the Olympics, or anything else, how much time have the best players committed? A lifetime. A good game requires a person to commit their lives to it and still come up short of perfection. A casual, newbie player is absolutely not entitled to the ability to do what the best players in the world do.
It is absolutely disgusting to think of the NBA saying, "Well, the majority of basketball players in the world, who mostly are comprised of casual players spending under 5 hours a week playing, think that ball handling and dribbling is a mundane task and an artificial block that prohibits players from getting straight to the exciting things in the game. From now on, basketball players no longer need to dribble the ball." But that is how you want to simplify SC2. You want to eliminate the physical obstacles that prevent you from doing moves you feel entitled to do. So sorry, but that is not what an RTS is. Look to board games and turn-based strategy games and "RTS" games that are so slow that you could make them turn-based without anyone noticing.
In this post I'll try to elaborate only on factual (in my opinion) errors from your post, if you interested of course.
On March 26 2008 17:45 mahnini wrote: Microing takes strategy, tactics, and speed. Macro takes strategy, tactics, and speed. Yet somehow, some people consider one to be more relevant than the other.
There is two reasons why people do this, and both reasons are left outside of your post:
1. Both micro and unit production play their role throughout the game. But there is one important difference - unit production appears only periodically. With micro you can increase or decrease intensity, you can be forced by your opponent or you can force your opponent to micro. Unit production takes it place only once in XX seconds and completely fades away till another wave. Сontrary, micro phases often lead to non-stop action.
Partly, as a result, appears another important point - players can spend additional 10, 20 or much more seconds increasing effectiveness of their armies (using spells more accurately, focus-firing with groups of units, saving wounded units or scouting, etc). This is not true for unit production, spending more time on unit production rather decreases effectiveness. Although, player can improve his timing, thus improving unit production (once in XX seconds), but that's rather mental task, which almost isn't affected with mbs. As for micro, each additional second has huge potential to increase results.
2. Micro has more depth. It not just requires more complicated skills from player (as mouse precision). Micro can tear apart player attention - it can, and usually does, produce additional multitasking layers (harassing and leading your army at the same time; attacking in different directions, etc), while unit production itself is such layer and different branches of unit production are usually connected by "unit production periods" and doesn't form real multitasking subdivisions
On March 27 2008 02:00 NonY[rC] wrote: Of course macro is a strategic decision. Either you are ignoring the strategic part of macro or you are damning the parts of macro that have exact micro equivalents without also damning those micro equivalents. In the first case, I'll point out the strategic parts of macro. The timing of expansions, the timing of building probes, the timing of adding gateways and the unit ratios are all important strategical parts of macro. A mindless player whose best move is to hit 1z2d3z4d5z is absolutely guaranteed to produce a worse army than the player who intelligently starts and stops probe production, who expands at the absolutely earliest times possible, who always uses the gates he has and never builds too many and who builds perfect unit ratios. In the second case, you must think of macro in terms of micro to see their equivalents. A player who goes back to his gateways, builds new units from each, selects a probe to build 2 more gateways, selects another probe to start another nexus, and builds new probes from his nexii while telling the newly built ones to collect, is no different from a player who goes back to his units, adjusts each one into optimal positions, tells his HT's to cast their storms, drops his reavers from his shuttles, and goes to fetch his reinforcements to clean up the end of the battle. Both sets of actions are equally mundane and exciting, both can be done skillfully or idiotically, both can be done quickly or slowly, both can yield great results or spell defeat. If you think that the macro actions are so boring and mindless, then that is simply your preference.
On March 26 2008 18:48 Agone wrote: Well there are two issues with your opinion:
- first, nothing prove that the actual balance between macro and micro is good. Even above that, nothing prove that the balance between all the strategic decisions you can make is good. As it stands now, I think it's not. As it stands now, macro is not anymore a strategic decision, macro has become a pure click fest and that's the real issue: you don't need to think anymore: a protoss that has trained himself to mechanically click 1z2d3z4d5z etc is more efficient that a protoss that really take the time to think what he is going to do. Speed clicking is way more efficient that thinking; I can't count the number of games I have seen where the guy who was takiing smart and advanced strategic decision lost to the guy who concentrates on the most basic strategic decision: clicking to make more units. So MBS is not a way to decrease the importance of strategic decision, it's a way to increase the value of the most interesting ones.
The GOOD 400 apm players think at 400 apm as well as click at that speed. They've played sooooooo much that they make their decisions extremely quickly. Also, if you watch the top BW players, most of them are very smart/strategical players.
Yes, at the mid-level you have copycats but I'd be shocked if this wasn't the case in chess as well (ie people who've only memorized an opening). I don't follow chess tho, maybe I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure WC3 has this problem tho, and they have MBS and no macro to speak of (so mbs doesnt really matter).
-Secondly, how could you make a post on MBS and then say that "the UI is NOT a limitation in terms of macro". If the UI is not a limitation then changing it should have no real impact. There is obviously an issue of speed here. People doesn't want the strategic aspect of macro to be taken out; they complain that they don't have the time to macro to a point they have to renounce to macro strategy. I like the strategic aspect of the game: when the player decide to cut worker production, why and when he decide to push or to expand, what unit did he decide to use and what decision and sacrifice has he made so that those units are avalaible. I don't like to see all those subtle decisions shadowed by how fast you can click on building. When I go on chessbase.com and look at a game of Fischer, I'm amazed; I know i would never come close to his level but I found it amazing. when I look at a game of a 400 apm progamer i'm rarely amazed, and I still know i would never come close to his level. The two are highly skilled, but the skills required in the first case are more interesting; if MBS allow SC2 to favour this kind of skills, I'm all for it.
Difference between chess and SC is that SC is a physical AND mental game - a Real Time Strategy game. I'm amazed as much by smart play as I am by sheer physical ability because I appreciate the difficulty/brilliance of both.
I want the game to be physical.
Some says that broodwar is still evolving and that a good sign. On the contrary I find that broodwar evolved extremly slowly. How many years does it take to play defiler in zvt? Maybe because progamers had to train X hours a day to get used to click click click rather than to think. How can you look at progamer who have to do a lot a useless spamming just to "keep" the rythm so that they are able to click when necessary and say there are not a UI problem? How can you say that there are not a UI issue when some people trains 10 hours a day and are still not able to use efficiently spell such as feedback, by lack of time, even though it quite cost effective?
Feedback is only really useful PvP and it's not hard to use because of the spell, it's hard because of the circumstances. The reason it's not used in any other matchup, save for rare PvZs, is not because it's time consuming to use it but because the DA is expensive, frail, and has a hard time reaching the spellcasters BEFORE the actual battle, at which point it's probably too late as you're better off storming yourself (PvZ) as the defilers are gonna get their plague or swarm off anyway.
Except for PvP or PvZ /w carriers involved. PvP you have a better chance of getting some HTs before a fight.. I'm sure the DA would be more useful in WC3, or if units such as the arbiter were more prevalent in PvP. It's just that units die quickly in SC, once a HT has gotten a storm off it's done its work.
Also, I don't get your point about defilers in ZvT at all really. Do you think that with MBS zergs would have been defiler rushing right off the bat?
Units production has it stands now is too time consuming; and it detracts to much to both the strategic and the tactic decisions you can make in this game. Less robots, more thinker, thanks in advance.
There are already many other changes made to simplify the UI; unlimited unit selection, smart-cast, auto-mining. And besides, do you really think MBS being added will really change anything?
No, there will still be robots, they just won't be macro-specialized robots (cuz everyone will have perfect production, physical production anyway) - they'll have memorized build orders and perfect micro.
And they will do good. Not great, but good. Same as in BW. Same as in WC3 (from what I understand). The only way to change this would be to massively change the requirements of playing an RTS, making it either silly deep or turning it into a turn-based game.
MBS is not magically going to kill off players who are not creative..
On March 26 2008 23:38 Senix wrote: Thats exactly what we should NOT do. Dont pray for something to happen MAKE it happen. Warcraft 3 is a "fantastic" game and Blizzard wasnt afraid to make "fundamental" changes. AWESOME! Good that we all had faith in Blizzard now they made the new best RTS ... oh wait..
Now is the chance to voice our opinions and we should do that and not "have faith in Blizzard" that failed to deliver already. We´re talking about Starcraft 2 here not Pokemon Alpha 2B.
This MBS issue will be a big one. Either Blizzard will go with the mainstream and use MBS or not and that will certainly have consequences on future RTS games when SC2 is successful.
You are correct. Because with Warcraft III, they certainly wanted to recapture the feeling of Warcraft 2 and not make any fundamental changes, yet they did. And because of this, the game didn't become great - no one played it and no professional scene ever evolved. The game wasn't even allowed into the WSG.
The scary thing is, with Starcraft 2, they've said that they want to make fundamental changes to the gameplay. They don't want the Koreans to continue dominating, so they will be adding tons of new features to the game to make it feel like a completely new game. No refinement here, it's almost as if they looked at BW and tried to diverge the design as much as possible from it in order to make the game look "cool" for newbs.
Blizzard has failed us, time and again. Remember the crazy larval respawnrate? Who nerfed that? Blizzard did! Remember that clickycklickycklicky game called Diablo II? Blizzard's fault. The abomination Warcraft III? World of Warcraft? Somehow Blizzard's lost touch with reality. Who would want to play *as* a character from Warcraft III? That game sucked.
StarCraft II is bound to fail if they implement MBS.
Here's one thing I dont think people appreciate enough.
Modern BW is way too macro focused.
FE builds absolutely dominate. Low econ builds are all but dead in modern BW. Now this may not be because of SBS and having to build depots/workers/sendworkerstomins, but consider another thing about what it means to be too "macro focused":
A lot of unit micro and potential is lost simply because they are too "micro-intensive" to be worth it. That is, they require an investment of concentration that is not worth it considering how much attention you are REQUIRED to always devote to babysitting your base. For example, queens. Ensnare should really be so useful in ZvT and to a lesser extent parasite, and its a cheap unit whose tech building is required. The primary knock against it? Its too micro intensive. Same with ghosts. Same with a lot of maneuevers that simply aren't done because it takes away time that you should be spamming 5t6t7t8t9t0t to make tanks- e.g. optimal spreading of tank formations, optimal positioning of armies. To me that seems like a more interesting development to work on than losing things like that due to the need to devote so much time and concentration on the base doing purely mechanical, entirely uninteresting macro clicking.
Progamers often WON'T optimally manage battles or even try to because the attention to that doesn't pay off as much as pouring attention into your base. Imagine if you could multitask in such a way as to manage 3-4 different armies at once across the map in a very interesting fashion? To me that would be a great development, one that would be just as multitask intensive as managing 1-2 armies and going back to your base, but a lot more interesting because its not just purely mechanical.
On March 26 2008 23:38 Senix wrote: Thats exactly what we should NOT do. Dont pray for something to happen MAKE it happen. Warcraft 3 is a "fantastic" game and Blizzard wasnt afraid to make "fundamental" changes. AWESOME! Good that we all had faith in Blizzard now they made the new best RTS ... oh wait..
If you don't like it, that doesn't mean it's bad. And WC3 is RTS/RPG. First and only successful RTS/RPG on such level.
I´m rating "successful" in comparison to Starcraft not other RTS games. C&C TW is probably successful in some ways too you know but nothing compared to Starcraft. Warcraft 3 isnt BAD. Starcraft 2 wont be BAD. But I want Starcraft 2 to be the next BEST RTS. I dont want second place. I want a game that´s worthy of the Starcraft brand.
I think by now everybody should know what people mean when they say "no Warcraft 3 plz". I mean you´re saying that Warcraft3 isn´t bad but you´re still playing Starcraft aren´t you?
EPT
